Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor Control
8 Nov 202320 minutes to read
This section briefly explains about how to include ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor control in your ASP.NET MVC application using Visual Studio.
Prerequisites
System requirements for ASP.NET MVC controls
Create ASP.NET MVC application with HTML helper
Install ASP.NET MVC package in the application
To add ASP.NET MVC controls in the application, open the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio (Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Manage NuGet Packages for Solution), search for Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 and then install it.
Install-Package Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 -Version 25.1.35NOTE
Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls are available in nuget.org. Refer to NuGet packages topic to learn more about installing NuGet packages in various OS environments. The Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 NuGet package has dependencies, Newtonsoft.Json for JSON serialization and Syncfusion.Licensing for validating Syncfusion license key.
NOTE
If you create ASP.NET MVC application with MVC4 package, search for Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC4 and then install it.
Add namespace
Add Syncfusion.EJ2 namespace reference in Web.config under Views folder.
<namespaces>
<add namespace="Syncfusion.EJ2"/>
</namespaces>
Add stylesheet and script resources
Here, the theme and script is referred using CDN inside the <head> of ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows,
<head>
...
<!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls styles -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/25.1.35/fluent.css" />
<!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls scripts -->
<script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/25.1.35/dist/ej2.min.js"></script>
</head>NOTE
Checkout the Themes topic to learn different ways (CDN, NPM package, and CRG) to refer styles in ASP.NET MVC application, and to have the expected appearance for Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls. Checkout the Adding Script Reference topic to learn different approaches for adding script references in your ASP.NET MVC application.
Register Syncfusion script manager
Also, register the script manager EJS().ScriptManager() at the end of <body> in the ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows.
<body>
...
<!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Script Manager -->
@Html.EJS().ScriptManager()
</body>Add ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor control
Now, add the Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor control in ~/Views/Home/Index.cshtml page.
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("defaultRTE").ContentTemplate(@<div>
<div>
<p>The Rich Text Editor is WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editor useful to create and edit content, and return the valid <a href='https://ej2.syncfusion.com/aspnetmvc/RichTextEditor/Overview'>HTML markup</a> or <a href='https://ej2.syncfusion.com/aspnetmvc/RichTextEditor/DefaultMode'>markdown</a> of the content</p>
<p><b> Toolbar </b></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p> Toolbar contains commands to align the text, insert link, insert image, insert list, undo / redo operations, HTML view, etc </p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Toolbar is fully customizable </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><b> Links </b></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p> You can insert a hyperlink with its corresponding dialog</p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Attach a hyperlink to the displayed text. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Customize the quick toolbar based on the hyperlink </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><b> Image.</b></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p> Allows you to insert images from an online source as well as the local computer</p>
</li>
<li>
<p> You can upload an image</p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Provides an option to customize quick toolbar for an image </p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>).Render()Press Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or ⌘+F5 (macOS) to run the app. Then, the Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor control will be rendered in the default web browser.
Initialize from iframe element
Initialize the Rich Text Editor on <div> element as shown below and set the enable field of IframeSettings property as true to render the Rich Text Editor content in an <iframe> and its isolated from the rest of the page.
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("iframe").ContentTemplate(@<div>
<p>
The Rich Text Editor control is WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editor that provides the best user experience to create and update the content.
Users can format their content using standard toolbar commands.
</p>
<p><b> Key features:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><p> Provides < IFRAME > and < DIV > modes </p></li>
<li><p> Capable of handling markdown editing.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains a modular library to load the necessary functionality on demand.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides a fully customizable toolbar.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides HTML view to edit the source directly for developers.</p></li>
<li><p> Supports third - party library integration.</p></li>
<li><p> Allows preview of modified content before saving it.</p></li>
<li><p> Handles images, hyperlinks, video, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains undo / redo manager.</p></li>
<li><p> Creates bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li>
</ul>
</div>).IframeSettings(iframeSettings => iframeSettings.Enable(true)).Render()
Configure the Toolbar
Configure the toolbar with the tools using items field of the ToolbarSettings property as your application requires.
@model List<string>
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("toolbar").ToolbarSettings(e => e.Items((object)Model)).ContentTemplate(@<div>
<p>
The Rich Text Editor control is WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editor that provides the best user experience to create and update the content.
Users can format their content using standard toolbar commands.
</p>
<p><b> Key features:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><p> Provides < IFRAME > and < DIV > modes </p></li>
<li><p> Capable of handling markdown editing.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains a modular library to load the necessary functionality on demand.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides a fully customizable toolbar.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides HTML view to edit the source directly for developers.</p></li>
<li><p> Supports third - party library integration.</p></li>
<li><p> Allows preview of modified content before saving it.</p></li>
<li><p> Handles images, hyperlinks, video, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains undo / redo manager.</p></li>
<li><p> Creates bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li>
</ul>
</div>).Render()public ActionResult Index()
{
List<string> tools = new List<string>() {
"Bold", "Italic", "Underline", "StrikeThrough",
"FontName", "FontSize", "FontColor", "BackgroundColor",
"LowerCase", "UpperCase", "|",
"Formats", "Alignments", "OrderedList", "UnorderedList",
"Outdent", "Indent", "|",
"CreateLink", "Image", "CreateTable", "|", "ClearFormat", "Print",
"SourceCode", "FullScreen", "|", "Undo", "Redo"
};
return View(tools);
}
NOTE
|and-can insert a vertical and horizontal separator lines in the toolbar.
Insert Images and Links
The Image module inserts an image into Rich Text Editor’s content area, and the Link module links external resources such as website URLs, to selected text in the Rich Text Editor’s content, respectively.
The link inject module adds a link icon to the toolbar and the image inject module adds an image icon to the toolbar.
Specifies the items to be rendered in quick toolbar based on the target element such image, link and text element. The quick toolbar opens to customize the element by clicking the target element.
@model List<string>
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("image").ToolbarSettings(e => e.Items((object)Model)).ContentTemplate(@<div>
<p>
The Rich Text Editor control is WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editor that provides the best user experience to create and update the content.
Users can format their content using standard toolbar commands.
</p>
<p><b> Key features:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><p> Provides < IFRAME > and < DIV > modes </p></li>
<li><p> Capable of handling markdown editing.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains a modular library to load the necessary functionality on demand.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides a fully customizable toolbar.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides HTML view to edit the source directly for developers.</p></li>
<li><p> Supports third - party library integration.</p></li>
<li><p> Allows preview of modified content before saving it.</p></li>
<li><p> Handles images, hyperlinks, video, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains undo / redo manager.</p></li>
<li><p> Creates bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li>
</ul>
</div>).QuickToolbarSettings(e => { e.Image((object)ViewBag.image); }).Render()public ActionResult Index()
{
ViewBag.image = new[] {
"Replace", "Align", "Caption", "Remove", "InsertLink", "OpenImageLink", "-",
"EditImageLink", "RemoveImageLink", "Display", "AltText", "Dimension"
};
List<string> tools = new List<string>() {
"Bold", "Italic", "Underline", "StrikeThrough",
"FontName", "FontSize", "FontColor", "BackgroundColor",
"LowerCase", "UpperCase", "|",
"Formats", "Alignments", "OrderedList", "UnorderedList",
"Outdent", "Indent", "|",
"CreateLink", "Image", "CreateTable", "|", "ClearFormat", "Print",
"SourceCode", "FullScreen", "|", "Undo", "Redo"
};
return View(tools);
}
Send formatted content using XmlHttpRequest
The Html string of the Rich Text Editor can be passed from View to the Controller through the XMLHttpRequest Post action. The HTML value binds to the corresponding mapped controller, and you can access it in the Post action parameter.
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("defaultRTE").ContentTemplate(@<div>
<div>
<p>The Rich Text Editor is WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editor useful to create and edit content, and return the valid <a href='https://ej2.syncfusion.com/aspnetmvc/RichTextEditor/Overview'>HTML markup</a> or <a href='https://ej2.syncfusion.com/aspnetmvc/RichTextEditor/DefaultMode'>markdown</a> of the content</p>
<p><b> Toolbar </b></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p> Toolbar contains commands to align the text, insert link, insert image, insert list, undo / redo operations, HTML view, etc </p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Toolbar is fully customizable </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><b> Links </b></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p> You can insert a hyperlink with its corresponding dialog</p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Attach a hyperlink to the displayed text. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Customize the quick toolbar based on the hyperlink </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><b> Image.</b></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p> Allows you to insert images from an online source as well as the local computer</p>
</li>
<li>
<p> You can upload an image</p>
</li>
<li>
<p> Provides an option to customize quick toolbar for an image </p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>).Render()
<button id="getRTEvalue">Get RichTextEditor Value</button>
<script>
document.getElementById('getRTEvalue').addEventListener('click', function () {
var obj = document.getElementById('defaultRTE').ej2_instances[0];
var value = JSON.stringify(
{ text: obj.value }
);
const Http = new XMLHttpRequest();
const url = '@Url.Action("Save")';
Http.open("POST", url);
Http.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
Http.send(value);
});
</script>Retrieve the Formatted Content
To retrieve the editor contents, use value property of Rich Text Editor.
var rteValue = this.rteObj.value;Or, you can use the public method, getHtml to retrieve the Rich Text Editor content.
var rteValue = this.rteObj.getHtml();To fetch the Rich Text Editor’s text content, use getText method of Rich Text Editor.
var rteValue = this.rteObj.getText();Retrieve the number of characters
To get the maximum number of characters in the Rich Text Editor’s content, use getCharCount
let rteCount = this.rteObj.getCharCount();The final output will be displayed as follows
@model List<string>
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("link").ToolbarSettings(e => e.Items((object)Model)).ContentTemplate(@<div>
<p>
The Rich Text Editor control is WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') editor that provides the best user experience to create and update the content.
Users can format their content using standard toolbar commands.
</p>
<p><b> Key features:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><p> Provides < IFRAME > and < DIV > modes </p></li>
<li><p> Capable of handling markdown editing.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains a modular library to load the necessary functionality on demand.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides a fully customizable toolbar.</p></li>
<li><p> Provides HTML view to edit the source directly for developers.</p></li>
<li><p> Supports third - party library integration.</p></li>
<li><p> Allows preview of modified content before saving it.</p></li>
<li><p> Handles images, hyperlinks, video, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li>
<li><p> Contains undo / redo manager.</p></li>
<li><p> Creates bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li>
</ul>
</div>).Render()NOTE
See also
- Real time example using Rich Text Editor
- How to insert Emoticons
- How to change the editor type
- How to render the iframe
- How to render the toolbar in inline mode
NOTE
You can refer to our ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor feature tour page for its groundbreaking feature representations. You can also explore our ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor example that shows how to render the rich text editor tools.